Akamu, the fisher king
whose name knows no age,
only the touch
of man to earth,
tide and bind

He crouches at shore
with line and hook
held as moon against
an ocean’s abandoned sky

All the things these
rough hands have grasp,
a lifetime of tribe
and testimony;
our land to the blade…

The fisher king
sees life in patterns,
the earth and its dimensions,
the land; an endless tapestry
of textures and surfaces,
uneasy as ocean
and the ocean
breathes him in…

His hands and feet
are worn with passions,
rugged with persistence
(unpossessed by the things
he possesses)

Driven only
by the tug of line,
the carving of canoe,
and the draw of Hilo and Huna…

Apryl Skies is a Los Angeles-based, award-winning poet and filmmaker. As founder of Edgar & Lenore’s Publishing House, a small press publisher, she expresses her creativity and emotion with a lyrical musicality and a quiet intensity. Author of several books, her writing has gained acclaim both locally and internationally.